With fluxspaces, San Francisco is using shadow real estate to grow inward

One of the interesting things about Houston is that we don't have any zoning here--so, you'll have apartments right next to light industrial, commerce next to public office next to shipping depots. This leads to a very eclectic mix in various parts of town.

What's really fun is watching how engineers/hackers transform the space they live in--regardless of lease, regardless of contracts, regardless of anything, cable by cable and bolt by bolt true hackers will terraform their living space to match what they want.

At our house, for example, first came a clumsy dining room table and chair made from hand-cut wood. Next, ethernet cable snaking into every room tacked to the ceiling. Next, small bolts to hold closed a dining-room-cum-office door. Then came a small shelf mounted over the kitchen sink, L1 cache for cooking. A few months later, a new screen over the utility closet. After that, a two-bike rack scaffolded over a brick wall. A bookshelf over the fireplace holding a media server. Speakers shelves over doorways. More cables interleaved with/replacing the old runs. Homemade LED display over the bar attached to the new CNS of the house.

Every day, a minor itch building a desire that one day culminates in another improvement.

I think that the attractor state for hackers left to their own devices is basically Kowloon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City).